The margins, not the centers, of public media are the likely leaders in this new space. (See PRX’s leadership in the podcasting realm.) To wit, PBS has all of 6 subscribers; by comparison someone named pbs5 has 884. (His videos are unlikely to appear on PBS anytime soon.)

So, we look to the margins. Jesse Thorn, the host of of public radio’s Sound of Young America, posted a clip that recalls public television at its coolest, Monty Python’s 1975 live appearance on a pledge drive on KERA in Dallas.